Post Haste

August 31, 2006


At times, business and leisure collide. The once revered pastime comes sneaking into the workplace, integrating itself into the everyday workings of your life so that even when at work, you can’t get away from it.

Case in point: Post Haste – the HenkinSchultz “AdverMarkeDesiBlog.”

I blog at home in my spare time. The subjects range from sports to books to life’s minutae.

Now, I blog at work. The subjects range from marketing plans to great design to questions on advertising.

Similar, but different. Go check it out.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Blogging |

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Game Theory

August 29, 2006



I’ve been listening to The Roots’ Game Theory all day today.

Game Theory!

If there’s anything I like about The Roots, it’s that their use of a full band makes them seem so genuine, and it fits perfectly with their hard-ass lyrics. They’re not messing around, these guys, and it shows.

Well, this album shows it even more. Holy shit. It’s good. As Eric says, “They got mad.”

Yes. Yes they have.

It hits stores today. Go buy it. Now. It’s their best album since The Roots Come Alive. Do it, or else.

Tags: Music |

2 Comments

The finished project

August 28, 2006


It’s been finished for a few weeks, but I haven’t gotten around to posting a picture.

This, my friends, is the Vilhauer library. Modest, yes. But to me, it’s beautiful.

The Bookshelves!

The best part is: look at all the space left to fill!

(P.S. — sorry for the blurry picture.)

Tags: Books |

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Writers in any sense

August 26, 2006


September. Fall. The turning of leaves, the raking, and the bite of a cold breeze.

In South Dakota, September means something more – books. The smell of a musty page, the excitement of a new purchase, the promise of a unknown writer, of a person looking for that small push towards notoriety. More specifically, September signifies the coming of Fourth Annual South Dakota Festival of Books. I, for one, am very excited.

And when I’m excited, I start listing things.

In honor of the upcoming book festival, I will be presenting my personal Top 25 Writers Countdown – the 25 writers who I look up to, who changed my outlook on words, or who inspired me to finally try this reading thing, this writing thing, and this blogging thing.

But what is a writer?

To me, this term can’t be smashed into one category. The best writers aren’t just authors or poets. They’re great lyricists. They’re important journalists. They write articles, songs, graphic novels, screenplays, television scripts, advertising, stand up comedy, hip hop, and opinions.

Who would you pick? The Coen Brothers or Bob Dylan? Walter Cronkite or Hunter S. Thompson? Ernest Hemmingway? Art Spiegelman? Joni Mitchell? Crispin Porter, David Sederis, or David Cross?

Constant readers probably remember my Top 100 Countdown back in April. For me, the most enjoyable part of constructing that list wasn’t the countdown itself, but the responses from friends, family, and fellow bloggers. Top ten lists came from everywhere. I’m not the only one who likes to list things, and it showed in the responses I got. Everyone has different tastes, and it’s fascinating to see the reasons why.

So in the upcoming weeks, you’ll be seeing the same thing. Writers being honored. Lyricists being heralded. Poets and playwrights and comics being raised up together, as one populace dedicated to putting words together in their own unique ways.

Do you think Jay-Z is more important to you than Charles Dickens? Would you rather experience the collective writing of the Monty Python troupe or the inventive wordplay of Shakespeare?

Send me your top ten. And let’s join together in celebrating the art of writing.

Tags: Literature, The Top..., Writers |

5 Comments

How to read

August 25, 2006


Nick Hornby has a great article on the Telegraph’s website on reading – and quitting – books.

If reading books is to survive as a leisure activity - and there are statistics that show that this is by no means assured - then we have to promote the joys of reading, rather than the (dubious) benefits.

I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if you’re reading a book that’s killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you weren’t enjoying a television programme.

Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn’t mean you’re dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking, or Iris Murdoch, or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever.

All of this rises from his monthly The Believer column – “Stuff I’ve Been Reading.” We buy books, but we don’t necessarily read them all. But sometimes we feel the need to trudge through a book just because we’re supposed to, or because we’ve paid for it and don’t want the knowledge to go to waste.

I know this well – Kerrie and I have a series of non-fiction books that touch upon a single subject: Rats, Salt, Tea, Cod, etc. They describe how the title-item changed the world. They go on for 200-300 pages, describing every known historical aspect of the title-item. They seem incredibly interesting. For some reason, however, I can never get into them, no matter how hard I try.

Am I a failed reader? No. I don’t have to finish a book if I’m not into it at that time. I’ve realized this more and more after starting my own “What I’ve Been Reading” column, both on this site and in Prime Magazine. I have a lot of books to get through, and there should be no shame in putting a book down if it’s not catching my interest.

Additionally, there should be even less shame in reading books that aren’t critically acclaimed. No one is going to call Bill Bryson a literary genius, especially with much higher-vocabulary travel writers like H.V. Morton, Paul Theroux, and V.S. Naipaul clogging up the shelves. But he’s funny. And he’s easy to read. And if that serves the lowest common denominator side of me, then fine. Bill Bryson is one of the most influential writers in my life. I don’t care if he’s nominated for a Booker Prize.

While I find myself going for critic’s picks more often than not, I’m also not afraid to say that I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. Kerrie reads Janet Evanovich. I have a lot of respect for Stephen King. I’ve never read Dickens, or Morrison, or Dostoyevsky. But I’ve read a lot of “pedestrian” stuff. And I don’t care.

Read what you like. The only important thing is that you’re actually reading.

Tags: Books, Literature, Writers |

2 Comments

An apt definition

August 24, 2006


Maybe this is old news to some of you, but I just recieved a forward that instructed me to do the following:

1- Go to www.google.com.
2- Type in failure.
3- Look at it the first listing and laugh at what comes up first.
4- Tell other people before the people at Google fix it.

So I did it. And this is what I found:

Boosh.

And that, my friends, is the power of the Internet. I’m not sure a better definition could be found.

Try it yourself, like the e-mail forward says, before Google fixes this.

(UPDATE: Thanks to frequent commenter Will we have a clear explanation for this — “Google Bombing”. And the best part? It’s never going to change.

From the Wikipedia entry:

A Google bomb or Googlewash is an Internet slang refering to a certain attempt to influence the ranking (called PageRank) of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions. Due to the way that Google’s algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page use consistent anchor text. A Google bomb is created if a large number of sites link to the page in this manner.

…

Google bombs often end their life by becoming too popular or well known: they typically end up being mentioned in multiple well-regarded web journals, which themselves then knock the bomb off the top spot. It is sometimes commented that Google bombing need not be countered because of this self-disassembly.

In addition, all major search engines make use of link analysis and thus can be impacted: a search for “miserable failure” on June 1, 2005 brought up the official George W. Bush biography number one on Google, Yahoo! and MSN and number two on Ask Jeeves. On June 2, 2005, Yooter reported that George Bush is now ranked first for the keyword ‘failure’ as well as ‘miserable failure’ in both Google and Yahoo!. And on September 16, 2005, Marissa Mayer wrote on Google Blog about the practice of Google bombing and the word “failure.” (See Google’s response below). Other large political figures have been targeted for Google bombs: on January 6, 2006, Yooter reported that Tony Blair is now indexed in the US & UK versions of Google for the keyword ‘liar’.

The BBC, reporting on Google bombs in 2002, actually used the headline “Google Hit By Link Bombers,” acknowledging to some degree the idea of “link bombing.” In 2004, the Search Engine Watch site suggested that the term should be “link bombing” because of the impact beyond Google, and continues to use that term as it is considered more accurate.

Thanks Will!)

Tags: Politics |

2 Comments

The end of creativity

August 22, 2006


A beautiful video. A noble cause.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Random YouTube |

3 Comments

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